


Take the Wheel

by Dat_Patriot



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Driving, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-24 02:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/934118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dat_Patriot/pseuds/Dat_Patriot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock decides he's had enough. He's teaching John to drive. [not brit-picked]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take the Wheel

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this when I was learning how to drive, so for me the focus of this was to help me feel more comfortable behind a wheel, and I used Sherlock and John as the outlet. 
> 
> I don't know how European/UK cars work, I just put the driver on the right. Otherwise it's like an American car.
> 
> Un-Beta'd. Not Brit-Picked.

"Now all you have to do is put the gearshift in drive and press on the gas pedal," Sherlock stated as if talking to an idiot, even though for once he didn't mean it.

Sherlock and John sat in an abandoned parking lot in a car that Mycroft had so generously donated for their cause; teaching John how to drive. It had been one of those things that Sherlock hadn’t considered—seeing as if they went anywhere it was by taxi or Tube—and now John was in need of this seemingly basic skill.

“How come you didn’t learn it in the army?” Sherlock had asked him when John had come home drenched one rainy evening. The Tube had been shut down on possible bomb alert and all the cabs that passed had been occupied.

John wrung out his jumper as he answered, “Well, there was actually a mix up with me. I got put in the wrong place here, got transferred over there, got into the wrong unit—that was a nightmare to fix. By the time they got me sorted, all the training with the trucks and jeeps had been finished and it was basically “learn it if you need to” status for me.”

“And you never had to drive the trucks? Even when you were on the lines?” Sherlock inquired, his fingers steepled as he listened to this new information on John’s army career.

“Turns out I was better suited for holding the sorry lad in the back together. Keep him from bleeding out too much.” John said gruffly, plucking at his ruined jumper. “I’d better go on and have a shower, I’ll--”

“I can teach you if you want.”

“What?”

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow in John’s direction, “I know how to drive. I can get Mycroft to lend us a car and rent out a space for you to practice.”

“What?” John shook his head. “No, no. That’s not necessary, really, Sherlock. I can manage.”

“Your ruined jumper can attest to that, no doubt.”

John gave him a look.

“Listen, don’t worry about it, Sherlock. I’ve got it sorted.”

“As do I,” Sherlock jumped up from his chair and clapped John on one sodden shoulder. “You have tomorrow afternoon free, yes? I’ll teach you to drive, get Mycroft to lend us a car—he’s got loads of them, trust me—and then you can take us to Sussex for our next case.”

“We have a case in Sussex?”

“I’m sure I can scrape one up.”

“Bloody hell, Sherlock.” John sighed, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. “Fine. Alright. I’ll learn to drive a bloody car. But that doesn’t mean I’ll like it!”

Sherlock smirked, “Excellent.”

This was what brought them here, to an abandoned lot, John behind the wheel of a sleek looking Audi and a secretly-cautious-yet-playing-bored Sherlock by his side.

What could go wrong?

John exhaled, his hands death-gripping the wheel in front of him, “Right. Gearshift. Got it.” He moved his left hand over to the shift and pulled it back to drive. Or at least, he would have if the thing would budge. He tried again with no avail. Cursing under his breath, he tried once more before throwing his hands in the air with a huff. “It’s not working.”

Sherlock was still looking outside the passenger seat window, “press on the brake pedal first to switch gears. Don’t forget to do the same for the parking break.”

“Brake? What the bloody hell will that—Oh. Okay, thanks.” John mumbled when the gear _actually_ shifted this time. “Hooo…. Okay. And parking break is off--”

“Now gently press on the gas.” Sherlock offered, eyes still on the window.

John mumbled to himself again and then Sherlock felt the brake come off, the car suddenly free to roll. It took just a moment for John to swallow and then—

The car jerked forward roughly, John’s grip on the wheel tightened and the rushed forward with John’s foot clamped up and rammed hard against the gas.

They surged forward for several yards before the machine came to a screeching halt, John’s foot still planted on the gas pedal.

“Wha--”

“Passenger seat break,” Sherlock gasped, the force from the car having flung him forward into the unyielding seatbelt. He pointed down to his feet where a scuffed boot pushed down on a third pedal on Sherlock’s side of the car. “I had Mycroft install it for our lesson.”

“I just—Jesus, Sherlock. I can’t do this. Nope.” John lifted his hands from the wheel, shaking his head and fumbling with his seatbelt. “You’re not enjoying this, I’m not enjoying this… Let’s just end it, shall we? Yeah. Good plan. Let’s just take a cab--”

“John.” Sherlock interrupted, his tone absolute.

That single word stopped John and he knew it was not only a command, but a question.  A silent _what’s wrong?_ that Sherlock would never voice aloud. John settled his hands in his lap as he allowed himself to breathe, not looking to the detective who was now solely focused on him.

“I, uh,” John began, his voice shaking ever so slightly. “I’ve never been… fond of cars. Or driving.”

Sherlock’s mind automatically whizzed through hundreds of possibilities for this before John continued, “You knew when we first met that Harry was a drinker.” Sherlock silently nodded. “Well, you don’t know for how long… I’m sure you’ve got some idea, I mean, you’re Sherlock…”

John chuckled slightly before clearing his throat. His lips pursed as he thought of how to continue, “When Harry was fourteen, I was just ten. She’d gotten drunk at a friend’s house—parents weren’t home, broke into the booze, the whole bit.” Another shuddering breath, “Well, at the time, it’d been my first evening home alone. My parents went out for their anniversary; Harry was out with her friends. We had a dog—Gladstone—so my parents thought I’d be okay.”

Sherlock listened quietly as John spoke, his eyes staring unseeing at the dashboard of the car.

“Well, it’d been getting late in the evening and I was all set to go to bed, but Harry hadn’t come home yet. I remembered mum saying that if Harry wanted to go out, she had to be back by ten so I wasn’t home alone all night. It was almost eleven when I’d noticed.” John scratched the side of his head, sorting his thoughts. “I… I don’t know what I was trying to do, exactly, but I was outside in front of our house with Gladstone and a flashlight.

“I remember seeing headlights coming down the street and I figured it must’ve been Harry… Only thinking back on it, the lights weren’t going straight—they were swerving about and sometimes even going onto the sidewalk. Now, I had no idea what was going on, but I decided to shout out to Harry and see if it was her.”

John paused, taking in a deep shuddering breath and licking his dry lips, “Well, she’d heard me and suddenly the car started swerving in my direction. Apparently all of them had gotten drunk before they decided to drop Harry off. Well, I just remember lights getting closer and closer—coming towards me until I was just… On the ground covered in scratches on the lawn.

“The car’d rammed into a nearby tree and the engine had caught fire. Harry and her friend managed to get out, but the boy in the driver’s seat got horribly… horribly burned before they managed to pull him out of the wreck and get out of there.”

The doctor then turned to Sherlock, looking him straight in the eyes, “since then I’ve had to overcome an irrational fear of cars. I can ride in them fine, but for some reason whenever I’ve tried to get behind the wheel--”

“Old panic sets in,” Sherlock finished for him, understanding the source of his problem. Fear. It was quite a manipulative emotion—one that had taken him a sight longer to suppress within himself to do his work. John had usually never shown any signs of fear before, unless someone he knew was threatened or likewise, so this was an entirely new development.

Sherlock had noticed how John’s left hand clenched ever so often as he spoke, giving away his internal struggle—he didn’t want this fear. He’d been trying to fight a losing battle with the wrong artillery for years. Judging by what he’d said, this wasn’t his first battle against this, either. That would explain his reluctance—embarrassment, lack of self confidence, pre-determined failure and more fear.

They weighed him down like a SemTex vest.

The detective had to get John past this fear, not just so he could learn to drive, but it was dangerous to hesitate in his line of work. And fear was a hesitant. It couldn’t bode well for the future.

“Right then.” Sherlock said, suddenly sounding all rearing-to-go. “The car’s in park, so just shift the gear to drive and lightly press on the gas.”

John stared at him, incredulous, “are you serious. Sherlock, didn’t you just hear me? I’m. Not. Driving.”

“No, John,” Sherlock made a show of rolling his eyes. “You’re against driving, you’re nervous of driving, but you will be driving; that is, if you shift the gear to drive and--”

“Gently press on the gas, I got it,” John finished, exasperated. “You’re really going to make me do this?”

“My blogger must have mastered all the basic skills—typing, shooting, tea-brewing and driving. This is merely the next step in your credentials, John.”

“That’s a load of bloody rubbish.”

“Perhaps, but I am here to teach you to drive, and so I shall. Put it in drive, John.”

“But you know I--!”

“The car, John. In drive. Let’s go.”

There was a thick moment of silence when Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure how John would respond to his commanding tone. To his surprise and pleasure, John just cursed under his breath and shifted the car gear to drive.

He removed his foot from the brake pedal and pressed on the gas. The car lurched forward before John caught himself, “I’m alright. Sorry. I got it.” He muttered over and over. He took a deep breath once more and Sherlock watched as he seemed to sit up a tad straighter, his soldier attributes beginning to surface.

The car rolled forward slowly; terribly slowly; almost Earth-shatteringly slow—but Sherlock could already see the improvement; this was controlled, consistent despite the lack of speed. He decided to kick it up a notch.

“Good John, you’re doing well,” Sherlock remarked. “Now see if you can go around that light post.”

John nodded shallowly with an almost inaudible “mm” of acknowledgement. The car picked up just the slightest speed as John made his way across the lot.

For the next three hours Sherlock had John drive around the lot, going around different obstacles and even making him do a figure eight—backwards—until he was sure his blogger was comfortable enough in the vehicle. John pulled into one of the parking slots and parked the car, releasing a deep sigh and leaning his head back on the rest.

“So. Was it as bad as you thought?” Sherlock asked, trying to suppress a smirk.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

The smirk fell, “but you did it, John. You’ve successfully driven for over three hours now.”

John shifted his head to look at his companion, “Yeah, I did it alright. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t freaked out the whole time.”

Sherlock just looked a little lost, “But… You did it.”

John just chuckled, shaking his head and knowing it was one of those “sentiment” things Sherlock wouldn’t understand very well. He pulled the keys out of the ignition and tossed them to his flatmate before getting out of the car, Sherlock following suit. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bit peckish.”

The other nodded, “Angelo’s?”

“Sounds lovely—but we’ll skip the candle this time.”

Sherlock just chuckled, locking the car behind them as they walked off the lot and towards the main road. They hailed a cab.

 

=x END x=


End file.
